


Gatcha Drabbles

by roronne



Category: Gatchaman Crowds
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, F/F, Fluff, Gen, gen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-11
Updated: 2014-05-11
Packaged: 2018-01-24 08:28:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1598306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roronne/pseuds/roronne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drabbles written after fic prompts on Tumblr! In order, the prompts were:</p><p>- G-team slumber party<br/>- Coffee shop AU<br/>- Hajime and Utsutsu on a cute date</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gatcha Drabbles

**Author's Note:**

> \- Please interpret the nature of Hajime and Utsutsu's relationship however you like.  
> \- Based on an interview with the director, I use male pronouns for Rui and Katze, and gender neutral for O.D. and Paiman.

**Slumber Party**

Rui bit his thumbnail again. Socially, it was a bad habit, he was aware of that – not that it ever stopped him – and tonight, engaging in it too much would surely ruin the nail polish his hosts had insisted, really, on lavishing upon him, along with the mishmash of sweets they served in Hajime’s room. It was a small outpouring of stress, normally.

Tonight, nestled upon cushions and quite literally bumping shoulders with other Gatchaman, the most stress he was encountering at all was the game they were all playing at once. Well – Galax was a given. He didn’t usually instigate Galax-ing sessions when he visited, despite his status as creator, but Hajime or Sugane would ask him a question, he would advise, and things would lead from there. A costume design night, maybe, for real-life and Galax makeovers both, or a minigame high-score-beating night with no rest til dawn.

No; tonight was a true battle. For a moment, he raised his eyes from the screen, subtly glancing through the curly bangs of his wig to his fellow Galaxters resting in a circle around Hajime’s tea-table. Hajime, beside him, wore her usual pinched smile as though she was holding in a laugh at all times. Utsutsu seemed ready to doze off at any moment… but her eyes were large, enraptured with the events on the screen. OD, across from him and propped up with a pillow beneath their elbows, winked. Even X, on the tablet, made to hide under the table, was silent. And Sugane, on his other side…

Flat-out asleep. Not even his training could have kept him awake staring at a glowing screen for so long in dim lighting; he’d simply let himself drift off into the mass of blankets on the floor.

And the battleground? Rui pushed his glasses up his nose, coolly looked back to his phone screen. Sugane’s Galax room. He’d left it wide open – physically, in-game, and territorially, while he snoozed at Rui’s side. On-screen, the avatars of everybody in the room approached Sugane’s avatar – also in sleep mode, spread on the tatami of his pixel-based dojo – step by miniscule step, seconds ticking by and the players frowning in effort and grinning in anticipation – until Hajime whispered under her breath, “Everybody, ready?”

Rui failed to bite back his smirk. “Play the game.”

From the stillness in the room came sudden movement as they all tapped the screen, everybody’s avatars poking Sugane’s at once, setting off a loud bleeping from his phone still nestled in his palm that jolted him awake with a shout (that set the rest of them giggling, too, at his shocked and still-exhausted face) – then came the “Mission accomplished”, the jingle, “the world has been updated” with a revival of sound, light, joy in the den of pillows. OD perched over Utsutsu to turn on a lamp and reach for the tea, Utsutsu buried her face in a pillow with all intent to finally sleep, Hajime trembled with laughter, Rui smiled warmly at Sugane’s speechlessness.

“Thank you for helping us test the alarm clock feature, Sugane-kun. You’ve helped us update the world.” He whispered, popping a cookie in his mouth. This was his favourite method of testing apps.

 

** Coffee **

 

Another Saturday morning shift, another confusing, almost lyrical staff notice taped to the manager’s door. Their shift leader was on their last nerve.

“Mr. J. J.! Please, I understand how little there is we can feasibly do to pick up sales to meet target this week, but in that little bit that is under my supervision, give me guidance! Tell me which strategy to go with! Or maybe fire someone? Ha, ha, yes, to show them proper company procedure when – o-oh, but don’t actually fire them because if we lose a single staff member to a cold or exams or a burnt hand on the steamer, we are finished, finished! Mr. J. J.!” Paiman cried, on their knees before the locked manager’s office door, alternating between miserable prostration and frustrated pacing. Nobody really knew what the manager did in there; tap wires and listen to the higher-ups complain about their bad sales, probably. That was shift leader Paiman’s theory, anyway, not that they would mention it even after so many hours spent wearing out the carpet underfoot – those mutterings were privy only to lead barista OD, who popped their head into the staff corridor with a cheer absolutely immune to any of their coworker’s misery.

“Pai-Pai, whenever you’re done worrying and supplicating, could you maybe supplicate—whoops, I mean, supply us with some more takeaway cups? Ssssize M, thanks so much!” They laughed, ducking back only to be replaced with a rather more flustered barista.

“Leader! The newbie’s at it again, she’s brought the whole collage club! The entire collage club is here! What should I do?” He was flustered, the kind that comes from desperately maintaining a calm air when the tiny shop is jam-packed with customers who don’t know what they want to order all trying to pay with 1000-yen notes.

“Sugane! Again?!” Paiman jumped up… and rolled back over in defeat. The newbie, of course! “J. J. wants us to use the steamer less today since it needs cleaning, so, um… W- Well, it’s up to you and Jou!”

Sugane winced. “Jou’s on his smoke break.”

“Does that guy ever do anything else?!” Seeing the barista’s suddenly pained, conflicted expression, Paiman sighed, started over. “Just make sure she’s not on the steamer, get her to make iced coffee today – jeez, anything, as long as she’s not handing out suspended coffees and extra loyalty stamps like last shift—“

Sugane nodded, nervous, ran back to the shop with a squeak of sports shoes – and yelled.

“N- N- N- Newbie! What, what are you- why are you-“

“Look, the foam kitty’s coming out of the cup to say hi! ‘Hello, miss!’ Isn’t that cute? It’s cute, right? Yay, I’m glad you think so! There you go, a bambiccino – nooooo, don’t you worry, I didn’t sneak any coffee into it, unless you suddenly want to become an adult like Baracchi here, right? Huh, Baracchi, you take decaf?! That’s new! Did you want milk in this too? Eh? Where did the last whole-fat jug go? Oh, if you want the wi-fi, I’ll give you a receipt for the password-- ah, senpai, thank goodness, I think the cute kitty broke the milk steamer! But I’m using a whisk, so it’s fine!”

Saturday mornings always brought them back to target.

**Date**

 

“It’s so cute… but it needs more choco… but, but it’s so cute… but it needs… more choco… but…!”

Utsutsu returned to the café table with her drink, all grace and balance with the glass, finding Hajime caught in the midst of a fearsome battle. Her elbow stuck out trembling at an angle as she held the cocoa shaker precariously over her cappuccino, her expression scrunched up into what could only be described as joyful frustration.

Utsutsu hovered slightly, unwilling to disturb the scene. Then she gently made her way aside, sat with the greatest care not to touch anything when scooting her chair closer.

“What’s cute?” Her voice was barely audible in the busy coffee-shop.

“The bear, the bear!” Hajime gestured to the foam-sculpted teddy bear face adorning her coffee with a motion that almost sent cocoa flying out the shaker. “As always, the latté art here is just too cute! I don’t wanna drink it—ah, but I do…” She wailed gleefully,

“But you’re going to drink it anyway…” Her gaze sank with an instant melancholy to focus on the depths of her glass. Trust her to rain on Hajime’s parade; Utsutsu thought she understood by now that those chatty monologues were only ever expressing emotion, not necessitating a reply. She wanted to withdraw into herself, on the verge of regretting the entire trip. But Hajime perked up at just those words.

“Ah, that’s right! I should take a picture! You know, it’ll last longer! Then, here we go: cheese, Mr. Bear!” Within seconds she’d whipped out her phone, snapped a picture of the bear, and uploaded it on various social networks. She grinned with satisfaction.  “Mm! Per-fect! All good things come to an end, unless it’s on my phone memory, right? Yum! Now, let’s give you a cool hairdo, Mr. Bear…”

“I’m dreamy…” Utsutsu mumbled into her straw, barely able to bring herself to watch Hajime’s impromptu cocoa decorating session. The truth was, spending time with Hajime, no matter where, was becoming more and more enjoyable… Except for in such busy places. She felt boxed in. Normally she felt like she could leave some of those self-conscious worries behind in the pitch of her laughter and the magic her deft hands could work with the most ordinary of objects; even now, her eyes flickered occasionally to Hajime’s new tabletop project. But she suddenly tuned in, focused: Hajime was creating an origami frog from a thin coffee-shop napkin alone. By the time she’d recognised all the details it hopped towards her with a press of Hajime’s fingertip, flopping by her saucer. Nonetheless, she twitched, made a sound.

“Eh? What’re you drinking, Utsutsu-chan? Looks refreshing!”

“I- Ice tea…”

“No way…” Utsutsu forced herself out of her closed-off state and saw Hajime’s eyes open, wide, appreciative, like she was already imagining herself drinking it. Appropriately, she briefly made a sour face once she spotted the lemon slice. “Somehow, Utsutsu-chan, I’d thought of you as a milk tea person! Or, hmm, maybe a latté? Vanilla latté?”

“I…! I like milk.”

“Ooh, spot-on! I guess the way they make it in places you don’t know… it’s really different, isn’t it?”

“It isn’t the same as how OD makes it…”

Silence fell for a moment: no happy hum of thoughtful pause as usual, no fingers tapping on the table. Utsutsu felt like she might withdraw into herself again before her girlfriend glanced around over-suspiciously, and leant forward, a hand raised conspirationally.

“Cat’s tongue?”

She bristled, blushed, then nodded slowly. If she’d gotten something that was too hot she would have felt like nothing more than a hindrance in anxiously waiting for it to cool—

“So, let’s wait it out together! Slow is better if it means you get to taste something good!”

And before Utsutsu could argue or question her, Hajime had cupped her hands and drawn them over the table to circle the coffee. It wasn’t at all as hot as she’d expected, not even when Hajime laced her fingers delicately, swiftly, between Utsutsu’s; like a loose-knit cosy for the cup. Its warmth raced up her arms, radiated through her. The ice-cubes of her tea clinked as though basking in the heat.

“Well, maybe this will keep it hotter… But, then, you get to pick what you want on your half of Mr. Bear! Make a good choice, Utsutsu-chan!” Hajime wiggled her fingers in an attempt to turn the cup around, setting her girlfriend off laughing at the tickling sensation, her anxiety dispelling into the air like the steam off the foam.

She wondered, after seeing Hajime with her beloved teapot so many times before, if the milky coffee really was for herself after all.


End file.
